All right, lovelies. What a day!

But for those interested in the #Zine, we have SO many ways to contribute now. Hopefully one of these will inspire something in you!

For Issue #2, we'll have a special section for #Ekphrasis: art and writing inspired by one of the two images below. Other inspired content welcome, too!

For Issue #3, we have a SPLIT between #Limerence (obsessive infatuation) and #CoSoAfterDark (naughty, saucy bits!). When these two meet in the middle, will sparks fly? We'll see!

@LiseL

#Poetry

Ekphrastic Poem #16 (I think? I'll check records)

Everyone knows the gift
of a seed among ruins.

But think of how, amid such
bright and brittle decay,
renewal must come to us
in so resolute a form.

Yet how else can it survive
the wintering to yield
at last to another promise
of some better day?

My computer's in update mode, so I'm off for my weekend crossword & food column. From yesterday's paper:

1) Xmas street decorations are up across town! Woo hoo!
2) COP16 (the UN biodiversity conference) is gearing up in Cali.
3) Folks are concerned about rising violence in my department, Antioquia. On top of local cartels, though, I had to do a double-take: the issue is cartels from México, Perú, Venezuela, the UK, Italy, Switzerland, Dubai, &... CANADA?! 🧐 What?! Did I miss a memo?

#Colombia

*Lysistrata. Silly typos.

But here's the Lysistrata action article from September, for more info:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-york-woman-at-center-of-orthodox-sex-strike-receives-her-divorce/

(One day we'll live in a world where women are full people, without contention or fetishization, either for stupid secular reasons or under arbitrary religious mandate. One day!)

Well, I fell asleep after class last night, so I'll catch up on the Zine after recording.

First though, I'm not sure if anyone here heard about the women who pulled a Lysistra in September (sex strike), but they were pressuring their husbands to make a child-molesting man give his wife a get (rabbinical divorce), & it worked! This episode of This American Life talks about a more brutal intervention (torture) in the ongoing struggle for women's rights among the Orthodox.

https://pca.st/episode/10fac60c-8135-4ee9-a6b1-45329ee6fbf7

@Museek

Truth!

The despair and suspicious attitudes that we can easily add to any crisis scenario don't help to bring us together.

What was broken in a moment sadly can't be fixed as quickly. We need *so much* re-humanizing grace with one another at these times.

Thanks for important reminder!

You folks are menaces! 🙃 We have four chains going, and some very clear rule-breakers (but all in good fun).

If you want to see how the stories are progressing, here's the flowchart so far.

Check the thread if you want to add more! Each vein is going in a very different direction!

#ChainStory #WritingCommunity #WritersOfCoSo

@JGSchaeffer @AskTheDevil @corlin @Christmas_Snow @cassandra17lina @EileenKCarpenter @AverageCitizen @misterfive

@Christmas_Snow @AverageCitizen @AskTheDevil

He answered with a cryptic rhyme about a lighthouse, and an address, which wasn't far from where my grandfather had spent over half his life, much of it a guarded secret to the rest of our family.

#ChainStory

@JGSchaeffer @corlin @misterfive

More and more, I'd spend my days between worlds, trying to complete my project pitches for work and drifting into that underwater kingdom where the drumbeats of ancient ancestors seemed to be calling me home.

#ChainStory

@cassandra17lina

The soothing lull of waves had given way to a terrible crashing at my skull, and the screams of shorebirds haunted dreams in which I saw a figure in shadow cutting across the beach below grandfather's cliff.

#ChainStory

@EileenKCarpenter @misterfive

I'd been a child then, and my parents never believed me when I said I'd waded with my grandfather into the water by his home, in my dreams.

#ChainStory

@Christmas_Snow @AskTheDevil

(I was just teasing Luce! All creativity is welcome! Keep this going! 🥳)

@AskTheDevil

We have four different story starts now, so I'll nudge along any that have gone quiet in an hour or so. :) All good! Good to get some play into the day!

@AskTheDevil

(😅 I was going to protest your use of four sentences, but then I realized it's Luce! Who among us can keep the Devil contained?)

@corlin @JGSchaeffer

Yes! After all the guff I got for introducing the word "ekphrasis" to many on CoSo, I decided to go for the simpler description here, but I do love the original term very much. :)